GTD guide
GTD and Google Calendar: what belongs on the calendar, what stays on your lists, and how to see both on one screen
Updated · 11 min read · Français
Getting Things Done® has a strict view of the calendar that surprises people coming from to-do apps: the calendar is not where you plan your day. It holds only what is tied to a date or a time, the hard landscape, and everything else lives on lists you choose from as the day unfolds. Most people who feel GTD ‘doesn’t work’ with their calendar are breaking that one rule, usually by dragging next actions onto days and then dragging them again the next evening.
This guide sets out the three things David Allen puts on the calendar, the things that must stay off it, a workable truce with time blocking, the tickler for things you want to see later, and then the practical part: how The Over Achiever shows your Google Calendar events on the same screen as your actions, on the web and on iPhone and iPad, so the two halves of the system, the hard landscape and the lists, are never more than a glance apart.
The calendar is the hard landscape: three things go on it
In GTD the calendar has one job: to hold what has to happen on a specific day or at a specific time. David Allen calls it the hard landscape, because it is the fixed terrain of your week around which everything else moves. Three kinds of entry belong there, and only three.
- Time-specific actions. Appointments: a meeting at 10:00, a call at 15:30, a train at 07:12. They happen at that time or they are renegotiated; there is no third option.
- Day-specific actions. Things that must be done on a given day but at no particular hour: hand in the report on Friday, call the school the day it reopens, take the car in on Tuesday. They sit at the top of the day rather than in a time slot.
- Day-specific information. Not actions, but things you will want to know on that day: the address of the venue, the fact that a colleague is away, a birthday, the hours a shop is open. The calendar is the right place because you will look at that day anyway.
The rule that makes the calendar trustworthy: if it is on the calendar, it happens that day, or you move it deliberately. Nothing on it is optional. The moment you let things slide from one day to the next, the calendar becomes a wish list and you stop believing it.
What must stay off the calendar
The mistake almost everyone makes is to use the calendar as a daily to-do list: on Sunday evening, twelve next actions are dropped onto Monday, Monday brings three unplanned interruptions, nine actions roll to Tuesday, and by Wednesday the calendar is a monument to what did not happen. GTD is blunt about this: next actions go on context lists, not on days, precisely because you cannot know on Sunday what Monday will bring.
The distinction that clears it up is between a deadline and an appointment. ‘Send the proposal by the 30th’ has a due date, and the due date is worth recording, but the work itself can happen on any of the ten days before. It belongs on your next-action list with the due date attached, and the calendar gets at most a day-specific note on the 30th. Putting the work on a chosen day turns a flexible commitment into a fake appointment, and fake appointments are what teach you to ignore real ones.
- ‘I’d like to do this on Tuesday.’ A preference, not a constraint. It stays on the list; you will pick it on Tuesday if Tuesday allows.
- Next actions with no date at all. The bulk of your system. They live by context, energy and time available, and you choose among them in the moment; see the guide to contexts, energy and time.
- Reminders of things you might want to do. Someday/maybe is a list, not a recurring calendar entry that you dismiss every week.
- Whole projects. ‘Website redesign’ is not an event. Its next action is on a list; a meeting about it is an appointment.
Time blocking and GTD: a workable truce
Time blocking, reserving a slot in the calendar to work on something, looks like a violation of everything above, and done badly it is. Done well it is simply a fourth kind of calendar entry: an appointment with yourself. The difference is whether you will honour it like a meeting with another person. If a block called ‘Quarterly report, 09:00–11:00’ is as fixed as a client call, it belongs on the calendar. If it is a hope, it does not.
Three habits keep time blocking compatible with GTD. Block the project or the outcome, not the list of actions: the block says ‘quarterly report’, and when the time comes you open the project and pick the next action from the list, which may have changed since you planned. Block only what needs a protected stretch: deep work, a task that needs two uninterrupted hours, preparation for a fixed event. And review the blocks honestly in the weekly review: a block you skipped three weeks running is not a commitment, and pretending otherwise damages the whole calendar.
A good test: would you decline a meeting request that landed on top of this block? If yes, it is an appointment and belongs on the calendar. If you would move the block without a second thought, keep the work on the list and leave the day free.
The tickler: things you want to see later, not now
Some things are not due and not actionable yet, but you want them back in front of you on a certain day: the renewal you will decide on in March, the follow-up you promised to make in two weeks, the idea to revisit once the launch is over. GTD’s answer is the tickler, historically a set of 43 folders, one per day of the month and one per month, into which you dropped a note and forgot it until the day came.
In a digital system the tickler is a start date. The item exists, it is out of your active lists so it does not clutter your choices, and it reappears on the day you chose. In The Over Achiever this is the Defer to Date status: give the task a start date and it stays out of the way until that day, when it shows up in Today with the rest of that day’s tasks. If the start date also has a time, the app sends a reminder at that moment. The tickler is what lets you keep the calendar clean: instead of a day-specific entry ‘think about renewing the lease’, the task itself surfaces when it is time.
Google Calendar in The Over Achiever, step by step
The system above needs two things side by side: the hard landscape, which for most people lives in Google Calendar, and the lists, which live in the GTD app. Switching between two windows all day is how the calendar gets ignored. The Over Achiever shows your Google Calendar events on the same screens as your actions, in Today and in Agenda, without moving your calendar anywhere. Here is how to set it up in the web app.
- 1
Connect your Google account
Open the calendar icon in Today or Agenda, or go to Settings → Calendar accounts, and click Connect. Google asks you to approve read access to your calendars; the app requests read-only permission and nothing else. You approve once, and the events keep loading on later visits.
- 2
Choose which calendars to show
Every calendar of the account appears with its colour: personal, work, shared team calendars, birthdays, holidays. Tick the ones you want to see and leave the rest unticked. The selection is remembered for your next visits.
- 3
Add more accounts if you have them
Use Add calendar account to connect a second Google account, or an Outlook / Microsoft 365 account, and tick its calendars the same way. A Google Workspace calendar from work and a personal one can be shown together.
- 4
Look at Today
The Today screen has the day’s events on the left, in a day view with the current hour marked, and the day’s tasks on the right: everything with a start or due date today. The hard landscape and the day’s actions on one screen, which is exactly what GTD asks of a morning glance.
- 5
Use Agenda for the wider view
Agenda shows the same events with Day, Week, Work Week, Month, Agenda list and Timeline views, plus optional week numbers. This is where you look two weeks ahead during the weekly review. All-day events are shown, and the video-call link of a meeting is kept, so you can join from there.
- 6
Create your own appointments in the app
A task with a start time and an end time becomes an appointment in the app: it is drawn as a coloured block on Today and Agenda alongside the Google events. Use it for blocks and commitments you would rather keep inside your GTD system; Google Calendar remains the home of everything else.
- 7
On iPhone and iPad
The mobile app reads the calendars of the device instead of connecting to Google directly. Add your Google account to the iOS Calendar app once, and its events appear in The Over Achiever’s Today and Agenda the same way, with the same choice of which calendars to show.
The integration is one-way: The Over Achiever reads your Google Calendar and displays it; it never writes to it. Appointments you create in the app stay in the app, and your Google Calendar is only ever touched by you. If you need an event in Google Calendar too, create it there and keep the action on your list.
The calendar in the weekly review
The weekly review is where the calendar and the lists are reconciled, and it has a calendar step for a reason: last week’s meetings are where most forgotten actions hide, and the next two weeks are where most avoidable rushes begin. The Over Achiever’s guided weekly review has ‘Review the calendar’ as its sixth step, and with the events on the same screen it takes about five minutes.
- Look back one week. For each meeting or event: did it leave an action, a note, something to file, someone to follow up with? Capture it now; it goes to the inbox or straight to a list.
- Look ahead two weeks. For each fixed event: what has to be prepared, booked, printed, confirmed or read before it? Each answer is a next action, possibly with a due date the day before.
- Check your own blocks. Which appointments with yourself did you keep? Move or delete the ones you did not; do not leave them as decoration.
- Check day-specific information. Travel, addresses, deadlines noted on a day: is anything missing for the coming fortnight?
A typical week: what goes where
The whole discipline fits in one table. When something new arrives, ask which row it belongs to, and it goes to one place, not two.
| Item | Where it lives | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Dentist, Tuesday 15:00 | Google Calendar | Time-specific action |
| Hand in the expense report on Friday | Calendar, day-specific, or a task due Friday | Must happen that day, no fixed hour |
| Call the bank, any time this week | Next Action list, context @phone | No date constraint; choose it when you are on the phone |
| Send the proposal by the 30th | Next Action with a due date of the 30th | A deadline, not an appointment; the work happens before |
| Write the quarterly report, two quiet hours | Appointment with yourself; the project stays on the list | A block you will honour; the actions stay in the project |
| Chase Marc if no reply by Friday | Waiting For, plus a Defer to Date task starting Friday | Delegated; the tickler brings it back |
| Decide on the lease renewal in March | Defer to Date, start date 1 March | Not actionable yet; must resurface |
| Hotel address and booking reference | Calendar, in the event notes | Day-specific information |
| Marie’s birthday | Calendar, all-day event | Day-specific information |
| Learn Italian one day | Someday / Maybe list | Not a commitment yet |
Frequently asked questions
Does GTD use a calendar?
Yes, and in a strict way. The calendar holds the hard landscape: time-specific actions (appointments), day-specific actions (things that must happen on a given day) and day-specific information. Everything else, in particular next actions, lives on lists organised by context, so you choose according to the day rather than pre-deciding it.
Should I put my to-do list on my calendar?
No. Dropping next actions onto days turns the calendar into a wish list that has to be rewritten every evening, and you stop trusting it. Keep next actions on context lists, keep the calendar for what is genuinely tied to a day or time, and use the weekly review to reconcile the two.
Is time blocking compatible with GTD?
Yes, when a block is a real appointment with yourself that you would defend against a meeting request. Block the project or outcome, not the individual actions, block only work that needs a protected stretch, and review skipped blocks honestly each week.
Does The Over Achiever sync with Google Calendar?
It displays your Google Calendar events next to your actions, in Today and Agenda, in the web app: you connect the account once, choose which calendars to show, and can add a second Google account or an Outlook / Microsoft 365 account. The integration is read-only: the app never creates or changes events in your Google Calendar. On iPhone and iPad the app reads the device’s calendars, which include any Google account added to iOS Calendar.
Can tasks in The Over Achiever appear in Google Calendar?
Not automatically. Appointments created in the app, a task with a start time and an end time, are shown in the app’s calendar views alongside your Google events, but they are not pushed to Google. If you need an event in Google Calendar, create it there; the action stays on your list.
What is the tickler in GTD, and how do I do it in the app?
The tickler makes something reappear on a chosen day without cluttering today’s lists. In The Over Achiever, set the task’s status to Defer to Date and give it a start date; it stays out of the way and shows up in Today on that day, with a reminder if the start date has a time.
GTD® and Getting Things Done® are registered trademarks of the David Allen Company. The Over Achiever is not affiliated with or endorsed by the David Allen Company.